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Peddlers of the drug excuse
Tampa's Antonio Tarver will step back into the ring Saturday when he takes on Elvir Muriqi on Showtime. It will be his first fight since losing to Bernard Hopkins last June. Tarver has been unable to explain his performance that night until recently, when he claimed last week on a conference call that he thinks he might have been drugged. Boxers are notorious for making excuses after a loss, and being drugged is a favorite and just one you won't find in other sports. It's one of the many things that make boxing (cough) special.
By JOHN C. COTEY
Published June 6, 2007
Tampa's Antonio Tarver will step back into the ring Saturday when he takes on Elvir Muriqi on Showtime. It will be his first fight since losing to Bernard Hopkins last June. Tarver has been unable to explain his performance that night until recently, when he claimed last week on a conference call that he thinks he might have been drugged. Boxers are notorious for making excuses after a loss, and being drugged is a favorite and just one you won't find in other sports. It's one of the many things that make boxing (cough) special. Boxer | Claim | How | Truthiness factor scale (1-10) | | George Foreman | In his recently published memoirs, God in My Corner, he says he was drugged before his fight with Muhammad Ali in 1974. | A drink that "tasted like medicine." Foreman says his trainer gave him a drink that left a medicinal taste in his mouth. "After the third round, I was as tired as if I had fought 15 rounds. What's going on here? Did someone slip a drug in my water?" he writes. | 6 There was a lot of drama going on behind the scenes in Zaire leading up to that fight. Rope-and-Dope, anyone? | | Antonio Tarver | Someone "got to me" the night before his lackluster loss to Bernard Hopkins last June. | Room service? "Something happened. I do not want to point the finger. I believe that there was a possibility that they got to me, or someone got to me with ordering room service, a drink of water or whatever. But I was not myself. As big as that fight was, I could not get into it mentally, emotionally, spiritually, or nothing.I was zapped for whatever reason." | 2 Foreman beat Tarver to the punch by making the same claim a week or so before, so this one is tougher to swallow. Yes, Tarver did not look like himself that night, but according to numerous reports, he also had to lose about 50 pounds in six months after filming for his role in Rocky Balboa. | | Wladimir Klitschko | He was either drugged before or during his 2004 loss to Lamon Brewster. | Unclear. Klitschko hired a lawyer and asked for a federal investigation to find out though. His team cited a sudden drop in the fight odds, among other things. In a letter to investigators, trainer Emmanuel Steward wrote: "In all my years as a trainer, I have never seen anything like this. I know when a fighter is hurt from an opponent's punches. In this case, there was something else causing Wladimir's problems." | 2 Gas and glass: What Klitschko ran out of, and what his jaw is made of. | | Jim Jeffries | The Great White Hope claims he was the Great White Doped when he was clobbered by Jack Johnson in 1910. | Doesn't say, but Jeffries' claim came years later in his biography. After the fight, he made no such claims (at least Foreman raised the possibility immediately after his loss to Ali, though nothing came of it). | 2 We're being generous because it was back in the day when boxing could have easily pulled off something like this. But in their racially charged fight, it's hard to believe that the white guy is claiming he was drugged so the black guy could win. | | Young Firpo | His loss to George Courtney in 1930 was rigged from the beginning, with drugging just a small part of a bigger plan. | According to Boxrec.com, Firpo was given fresh oranges to eat by his personal manager, Bobby Evans, and instantly became groggy. The fight was stopped in the fifth round by referee Toby Irwin. | 9 We totally believe this one. Evans allegedly made Firpo drive all night from Idaho to San Francisco for this fight, and then gave him the orange, and just as the effects were starting to wear off and Firpo started fighting, Irwin stopped the fight and claimed Firpo wasn't fighting. Firpo quit boxing (he later returned), and it all smells fishy to us. | | Mike Tyson | He was drugged before 1990 fight with Buster Douglas, suffering his first loss in the most stunning upset in boxing history. | Okay, this one may not belong with the others, as it appears to be somewhat self-inflicted and is the case for many of Tyson's later fights, apparently. But in order to keep Tyson in control, his handlers fed him a steady diet of lithium and Zoloft, to name a few, just to keep him from eating our children. The trick was getting him off the drug in time for the actual fight. | 10 We saw the interview on 60 Minutes with Robin Givens. We were scared then. We're scared now. Keep the Zoloft coming, people. |
[Last modified June 5, 2007, 23:09:28]
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by Giovanni
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07/21/07 12:53 AM
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In 1930 Young Firpo was marching toward a light heavyweight title shot with Rosenbloom. Courtney was managed by Jack Kearns who claimed Courtney was going to get the title shot. W/in 5 SF boxing was investigated. Irwin was sanctioned for one year.
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by DrTracy
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06/06/07 10:28 AM
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HOW LITTLE YOU KNOW ABOUT ZOLOFT!!!! Zoloft is the reason Tyson bit the ear of his opponent and bashed a TV among other things. They gave it to him because it works like a steroid. It should be banned from sports!
Dr. Tracy
www.drugawareness.org
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